


The Pilgrimage (Toward the Farplane)

by amarielah



Category: Final Fantasy X, Homestuck
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Black Romance, F/M, Guardians - Freeform, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Power Imbalance, Quadrant Confusion, Red Romance, Sacrifice, Sadstuck, Setting: Final Fantasy X, not-quite-sober!Gamzee, subjugglator!Gamzee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:30:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarielah/pseuds/amarielah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He may very well be the descendant of the first High Summoner, but that doesn't change the fact that he’s a lowblood and a cripple. It's only a matter of time before he's culled by an enraged subjugglator acting on their instincts. So since he’s going to die anyway, he decides to do it on his own terms: bringing other trolls a short-lived respite from the constant fear that governs their lives, and maybe even being remembered as a hero.</p><p>He decides to become a summoner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pilgrimage (Toward the Farplane)

**Author's Note:**

> Fusion with the setting of Final Fantasy X, using the geography, mythology and magic system of FFX while keeping some fundamental features of Troll society intact.

He likes to watch the sea.

 

When it’s a bright night like this, and the water is calm enough, the moonlight glints off the water almost cheerfully, broken only by the occasional swell too small to really be called a wave. It’s calming, if he tries to forget that Sin is out there, somewhere on the dark horizon. That it’s only a matter of time before it comes to uproot every little ounce of progress they’ve made since the last attack.

 

It usually kills about half the trolls with its sinspawn and tsunamis, and it has a psychic attack that kills about a third of the lusii. That’s how Tavros lost Tinkerbull. Barely three sweeps old, watching without really understanding as the little lusus dropped to the ground with black blood oozing from his ears.

 

But really, he’s trying to put the fact that he’s a crippled orphan out of his mind. And the sea is so very pretty.

 

“Alone here again, Tavbro? That shit ain’t good for a motherfucker’s thinkpan.”

 

Tavros sighs softly, tensing as the subjugglator named Gamzee Makara sits down beside him, stretching his legs out on the sand. It’s hard not to be tense around the highblood, who’s been known to cull even midbloods at the slightest provocation. Or even just because he wants art supplies. But he’s never been overtly hostile to Tavros – is even downright pleasant, some of the time – so Tavros always tries his best to get himself to relax.

 

Gamzee has no lusus either (though Tavros has it on good authority that it left of it own volition, rather than being culled by Sin), and doesn’t really have much in the way of friends. More like acquaintances who are too afraid of rejecting his overtures outright, for fear of sending him into a culling rage. And he definitely doesn’t have any of his quadrants filled. It’s an open secret that there’s sopor slime in the drinking gourd he carries everywhere, which probably would’ve gotten him culled by the other subjugglators if he lived on the mainland. But here he’s the only subjugglator there is, and he’s crazy-strong to boot, so people mostly keep their mouths shut about his habit.

 

There’s something pitiable about the highblood that makes it impossible for Tavros to really hate him, but also something hateful that makes it impossible to really pity him. Still, it’s kinda nice to have company when he’s watching the sea, even if the company consists entirely of a subjugglator with an erratic temper and a thinkpan addled with sopor slime.

 

This isn’t the first time, either. Tavros hasn’t exactly kept count, but Gamzee has a habit of showing up when Tavros is on the beach – especially when his mood is particularly grim. Sometimes, he even helps wheel Tavros back to his hive when sunrise is coming.

 

It makes no sense, really. By all accounts, he should’ve culled Tavros the second he laid eyes on his four-wheel device. And yet here they are, sitting on the beach together. It wrinkles Tavros’ thinkpan if he dwells on it too long.

 

“So,” begins Gamzee, not taking his eyes off the rolling waves. “Has my shitblooded brother decided to take on the sacred motherfuckin’ mantle?”

 

Tavros had told him about maybe becoming a summoner the last time they’d been here together, and Gamzee had been skeptical. At least, Tavros _thinks_ that he’d been skeptical; Gamzee’s got a way of talking that can make him really hard to read.

 

“...Yeah,” says Tavros. “He, uh, motherfucking has.”

 

Gamzee’s face twists into an almost-smile. “Motherfuckin’ miracles,” he says.

 

It could be approval or it could be mockery – with Gamzee, it’s always difficult to tell. Tavros has a feeling it’s the latter, though, and bristles. “I know I, uh, probably won’t succeed. That I probably won’t even survive the first communion.” His throat tightens painfully, making it impossible for him to speak for a moment. It passes, though, and he says, “It’s still better than being culled.”

 

“Ain’t no shame in dying on the way to salvation, bro.”

 

Maybe it’s the crushing certainty of death that makes him bold, or maybe he’s breathing in sopor fumes from Gamzee’s gourd. Either way, he says, “I thought subjugglators aren’t allowed to lie.”

 

There’s a moment of complete silence, Tavros’ entire body tensing in anticipation of bone-crushing blows from a pair of juggling clubs. But then Gamzee laughs, collapsing back onto the sand, grains of it getting caught in his hair as he convulses with a twisted kind of mirth.

 

He laughs for a very long time.

 


End file.
